NASCAR should address their suspension penalties

MRM

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Kyle Petty is right. It makes no sense for NASCAR to suspend a crew chief and crew members for 4 races for simply having a wheel come off, yet a driver intentionally wrecks another driver only gets suspended for 1 race. Intentionally wrecking another driver is far more dangerous than losing a wheel, especially given the injuries to drivers in the new car.

 
NASCAR and the networks that cover it have made on-track retaliation (and the off-track fights/shoving matches that often go along with it) a central part of the way that the sport is presented to the fans since at least the 1979 Daytona 500. They've put out countless video highlight packages of this stuff and have done an excellent job of hyping it up all the time. "Boys have at it" was literally NASCAR's policy for several years.

NASCAR may prove me wrong on this someday, but I don't see them completely reversing this stance all of a sudden over one instance of retaliation that, yes, while reckless and dangerous, as all such incidents inherently are, wasn't even close IMO to what Tony Stewart did to Matt Kenseth during the 2006 Daytona 500, which is still to this day the benchmark that I use to judge all such incidents. (I'd say that Kyle Busch/Ron Hornaday in the trucks at Homestead in 2011 is the worst instance of yellow flag retaliation that I've ever seen as of this moment.)



At this point, Bubba's penalty has been handed down, and whether any of us like it or not, it is what it is. Personally, as someone who has seen these drivers be both the bat and the ball countless times over the years and tends to now take a neutral approach to this stuff as per my sig, I'm fine with the penalty. Even if I wasn't, it's not like anything I can say will change it one way or another anyway.
 
Losing a tire is more dangerous than wrecking a driver. The driver has a steel cage, helmet, softer walls, and many other safety devices protecting them. What do the people on pit road and in the stands have protecting them if they are hit by a tire going 150 mph?
 
The suspension is deserved and Bubba has been punished. Larson fans need to move on. They are becoming the most toxic fan base in racing.
 
The suspension is deserved and Bubba has been punished. Larson fans need to move on. They are becoming the most toxic fan base in racing.
are there any Larson fans on here besides myself and maybe two other folks?
 
I like Kyle Petty and respect him for being very insightful and he makes some great points in this case.

But the public or the nascar fan base will never form a consensus for what should have been done. It was/is a buffet of endless possibilities and if they had chosen to enforce Kyle Petty's beliefs people wouldnt be happy with that either. They will be complaining about this well past the next event regardless of how Nascar handled it. Some will never get tired of the second guessing and take it to the grave.

Suspending a driver in Nascar for a single race is a severe penalty and they dealt with it. I am not a Nascar apologist but I believe they tried to handle this thankless task as responsibily as possibile.

Wallace has to be feeling the heat and pressure for his mistakes and he has time to think about it while he sits out the Homestead race. It is enough to make him want to do better and also a warning for other drivers to know it isnt taken lightly.

He also has to deal with the next drivers meeting that he will attend and looking at his peers in the eye. This will be in the back of peoples mind for a long time.

I can only speak for myself but I think enough action has been taken and I will be glad to see the next race start.
 
I like Kyle Petty and respect him for being very insightful and he makes some great points in this case.

But the public or the nascar fan base will never form a consensus for what should have been done. It was/is a buffet of endless possibilities and if they had chosen to enforce Kyle Petty's beliefs people wouldnt be happy with that either. They will be complaining about this well past the next event regardless of how Nascar handled it. Some will never get tired of the second guessing and take it to the grave.

Suspending a driver in Nascar for a single race is a severe penalty and they dealt with it. I am not a Nascar apologist but I believe they tried to handle this thankless task as responsibily as possibile.

Wallace has to be feeling the heat and pressure for his mistakes and he has time to think about it while he sits out the Homestead race. It is enough to make him want to do better and also a warning for other drivers to know it isnt taken lightly.

He also has to deal with the next drivers meeting that he will attend and looking at his peers in the eye. This will be in the back of peoples mind for a long time.

I can only speak for myself but I think enough action has been taken and I will be glad to see the next race start.
I hadn't thought of this, but you are right. Maybe something very similar to this.
 
NASCAR rule book!
 

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Losing a tire is more dangerous than wrecking a driver. The driver has a steel cage, helmet, softer walls, and many other safety devices protecting them. What do the people on pit road and in the stands have protecting them if they are hit by a tire going 150 mph?
Although not a NASCAR race, your answer could lie in what happened in 1999 during the VisionAire 500K Indy Racing League race at Charlotte...
 
Seems to me, suspending a driver for one race is a greater penalty than suspending a crew chief and some crew members for four races.

My reasoning is, the whole team (including how the car performs on the track) revolves around the driver. His "feel" determines how they tweak the car's handling, and tailor the motor's throttle response, and other things that effect how the car performs. His driving talent and decisions determine how the team runs their race and usually the outcome. The driver is also the sponsor's public interface, and can determine if the sponsorship money continues or changes (it can even go away).

Not discrediting the crew chief and other crew members - they are important too - but they have much less public exposure and less individual impact on race results. They can be (and are) more easily substituted with less overall impact on results. When they are suspended the team will probably not perform as well as it could otherwise, but it usually performs better than when the driver is suddenly replaced.

Driver suspensions are also a penalty to NASCAR. They effect its public perception, which eventually translates in the Series' popularity and marketability. Of course some drivers impact this more than others (such as NASCAR's ongoing slump since Big E passed away), and some fans may celebrate the absence of certain drivers, but to the general public these things hurt NASCAR's credibility. Yeah, many say that the fight at the end of the 1979 Daytona 500 rocketed NASCAR's popularity, but it did so while imposing a stereotype that limits its growth.

Wallace deserves suspension for his dangerous retaliation on the track. One can make a good argument that his suspension should be longer. His walk down the live track, followed by his slappy fit on Larson, was only dangerous to himself and it made him look bad. He only hurt himself by doing that, and placed a target on his own back. But particularly while NASCAR still apparently fosters its redneck-trying-for-diversity stereotype, NASCAR doesn't need Wallace on the sidelines too long. Wallace brings public attention, and with it marketability.
 
Losing a tire is more dangerous than wrecking a driver. The driver has a steel cage, helmet, softer walls, and many other safety devices protecting them. What do the people on pit road and in the stands have protecting them if they are hit by a tire going 150 mph?

Exactly. Losing tires is extremely dangerous. The drivers sign up and agree that they can lose their lives and are paid pretty well to do so. When a fan buys a ticket to a race they're 100% expecting to come home that night
 
Don't intentionally wreck other drivers, but if you do...we're going to put it in every highlight video we possibly can.

I mean, it's hard for them to pretend like it's frowned upon when it brings in the ratings. I think with that considered, a race suspension is a big penalty.
 
Losing a tire is more dangerous than wrecking a driver. The driver has a steel cage, helmet, softer walls, and many other safety devices protecting them. What do the people on pit road and in the stands have protecting them if they are hit by a tire going 150 mph?
True but no team intentionally leaves a tire loose.
Hooking someone into the wall at 150+ is a deliberate act.
 
Losing a tire is more dangerous than wrecking a driver. The driver has a steel cage, helmet, softer walls, and many other safety devices protecting them. What do the people on pit road and in the stands have protecting them if they are hit by a tire going 150 mph?
Many drivers have died with helmets, a steel cage and safety devices to protect them. The only tire related death that I remember is Richard Pettys cousin inflating a tire and it exploded and killed him in the pit area. The great thing about loose tires is the tire usually comes off before the car can get to speed and the driver already recognises he already has a problem and is slowing down and coming to the pits. Tires loose on the track and getting hit is the biggest problem but we still havent had a death from that, not that it couldnt happen but right rearing someone and the driver hitting flush drivers side is still EXTREMELY dangerous no matter what they are protected by. Neither should be minimalized and the penalties dont make sense.Hell you've got one guy suspended that didnt even touch the car simply because he is the CC.
 
Don't intentionally wreck other drivers, but if you do...we're going to put it in every highlight video we possibly can.

I mean, it's hard for them to pretend like it's frowned upon when it brings in the ratings. I think with that considered, a race suspension is a big penalty.
The tracks make those commercials not NASCAR and if its a NASCAR track you have to remember the difference between the job the sanctioning body does and the job that the individual speedway has to do which is to promote the race and fill seats.
 
Don't intentionally wreck other drivers, but if you do...we're going to put it in every highlight video we possibly can.

I mean, it's hard for them to pretend like it's frowned upon when it brings in the ratings. I think with that considered, a race suspension is a big penalty.
Same thing in hockey, they say they don't like the fights but you'll always see one in a commercial promoting the sport.
 
The tracks make those commercials not NASCAR and if its a NASCAR track you have to remember the difference between the job the sanctioning body does and the job that the individual speedway has to do which is to promote the race and fill seats.
oh and also the Networks make the commercials too.
 
Many drivers have died with helmets, a steel cage and safety devices to protect them. The only tire related death that I remember is Richard Pettys cousin inflating a tire and it exploded and killed him in the pit area. The great thing about loose tires is the tire usually comes off before the car can get to speed and the driver already recognises he already has a problem and is slowing down and coming to the pits. Tires loose on the track and getting hit is the biggest problem but we still havent had a death from that, not that it couldnt happen but right rearing someone and the driver hitting flush drivers side is still EXTREMELY dangerous no matter what they are protected by. Neither should be minimalized and the penalties dont make sense.Hell you've got one guy suspended that didnt even touch the car simply because he is the CC.
Agreed. And if you see the in-car camera video NASCAR uses, the hit caused the camera to tilt down after the impact with the wall.
 
are there any Larson fans on here besides myself and maybe two other folks?
I'm a Larson fan as I am a fan of most of the drivers running NASCAR races. My opinion of the penalty handed to Bubba has nothing to do with being a fan of Larson. He could've done that to another driver and I'd still be upset about it. I agree with Kyle Petty's explanation of the entire chain of events and figure this opens up a can of worms for any driver in the future not following rules. Kind of look forward to it now.
 
Seriously Bubba? An original WTF moment. He was check-mated on that corner, he had to know, and didn't like getting outsmarted, I think.
 
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